


Home?

by AnonEhouse



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cap-Ironman Bingo, Gen, Home, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:36:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5825269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonEhouse/pseuds/AnonEhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of Age of Ultron, Steve and Tony talk about homes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home?

(If you are reading this on any PAY site this is a STOLEN WORK, the author has NOT Given Permission for it to be here. If you're paying to read it, you're being cheated too because you can read it on Archiveofourown for FREE.)

 

"I'm home," Steve said as they walked away from the facility meant to house... what... SHIELD 2.0? Avengers Redux? Shiny, state of the art barracks and training facility for the stepchild of Fury's Special People Initiative? Was that a home?

What did Tony know what a home was? He'd been sent away to boarding school when he was seven, and gone on from there to a dorm at M.I.T. By the time he was graduated and thinking he'd come home to, if not open arms, at least acceptance as a useful adult, his parents were gone. Probably killed by Steve's best, brainwashed friend. Now there was a thought not to dwell on. Barnes was a weapon, apparently an offshoot of Project Rebirth, Howard's pride and joy. Hard to parcel out the guilt, beyond laying it at Hydra's feet. 

Bruce was gone, JARVIS was gone, Happy was head of security the width of the continent away, Rhodey was kept on the hop as War Machine, and, joking aside, pregnant and patiently awaiting the hero's return on a farm wasn't Pepper's role. He wasn't actually sure they were even still together. Any way you looked at it, Tony didn't have much more of a home than Steve did.

"If you ever need a place, you can always come to me," Tony said at last. "I remember reading somewhere, home is where, when you go there, they always take you in."

"That's close. 'Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.'," Steve said after a long moment. "It's from a poem by Robert Frost, 'The Death of the Hired Man'."

"God, that's cheerful."

"He wouldn't go to his rich brother," Steve mused.

Tony huffed. "Yeah, yeah, if you're rich you're heartless." Tony tapped at his chest; sometimes the habit of checking on the arc reactor still came back, even though the arc reactor itself was gone.

"No, it wasn't that. He'd be ashamed to go to his brother. It was easier for him to go to people he'd worked for, where he thought he could earn his way." 

"You never had to earn your way, Steve. If anything, the world owes you." Tony stopped and looked at Steve. "Maybe you were always a soldier, but even a soldier has a right to have a home at the end of the day. Somewhere he doesn't have to think about fighting, or defending, or leading the troops. Somewhere just because he belongs."

Steve ducked his head slightly. "Huh. The wife in the poem would agree with you. She said it was something you somehow haven't to deserve."

Tony nodded. "I like that." His car had followed beside them, and now came to a stop, waiting for him, not judging him, just being there. He ought to program it some sass. He needed that. He held out his hand. "Remember, I'm stepping back, not from you, but from... all this."

"Yeah. I got that." Steve shook hands with Tony. "Good luck with that."

"Hah, you think I can't resist putting on the suit." Tony got into the car.

Steve smiled. "We'll see." 

The last Tony saw of him, Steve was walking back 'home'.

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the 'Home' square on my Bingo card.
> 
>  
> 
> [ Robert Frost 'The Death of the Hired Man'](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173525)


End file.
